Boondocking and Booties, Lake Havasu City, AZ

After a brief two night stop over in Quartzite, AZ we moved on to Lake Havasu City. Not sure how we landed on going there but think it had something to do with water. It usually does.

Lake Havasu City is an interesting town and has been featured in the “Best Places to Retire” lists in Money Magazine, Portfolio.com. It is a mecca for ATV hobbyists, northerners who come here to stay warm for the winter and Californians to utilize the beautiful lake in the summer.

LHC boasts 300 days of sunshine and less than 3″ of rain a year. Summers are extremely hot averaging over 100 degrees.

There is many opportunities to boondock close to town. So we stayed at Craggy Wash just north of the airport.There is a camp host who issued a free 14 day pass. The entrance was quite crowded with many RV’s…some that appeared to have overstayed the 14 day limit. But as we traveled further in, the RV’s thin out and we had plenty of private options to choose from.

There are many hiking opportunities here and we were able to see some wild burros and big horn sheep. Sam got a little more up close and personal. We were walking the wash when we heard him way off in the distance. Finally seeing movement up on a mountain about a 1/2 mile away, big horn sheep were scattering on the hillside as a little white fur ball gave chase.

Crazy dog! He sliced up his feet pretty good and he walked around tender footed for a week. This put a damper on our other hiking plans since he goes with us everywhere. So we stopped in at Petsmart and bought a set of doggie booties for his tender toes. It was hysterical to watch Sam walk around the store for the first time with his new shoes. But once we arrived at Dead Burro to hike this 5 miler, Sam was in happy mode.

After about 3 miles, however, he had run so much the shoes started falling apart. We returned them on the way back home. We were happy with the fit and how well they stayed on his feet, but the quality of construction had some obvious issues

Shredded Booties

.

Sam’s new shoes

Dead Burrow was a great hike…once we found the trail. There are no real trail markers around these parts so we were left with other hikers directions to find the trail.

Description for this hike went something like this. “Drive the wash until you pass the hills on the left, then take a jeep road to the right and go to the right on the hill to the left. Back track to the other side of the mountain and take the small wash around a curve that will take you to a mesa. Cross the fence on foot and look for a poorly defined trail. Follow this trail to another wash that will traverse the right side of the canyon”.

If that wasn’t confusing enough there were unlimited hills, washes, jeep roads, mesas and burro tails that will take you off in directions not even close to the canyon you are trying to find. After taking many jeep roads and poorly defined trails, by some small miracle, we actually found the right canyon. It was definitely a great hike overall and like nothing we have done before.

The adventure was fun and it challenged us mentally.

If you happen to come here for yourself just be sure to take the second wash on the right.